In Fear and Faith
by Withheredroses
Summary: The experiment has ended. As Marty and Merrill set off together, an encounter with the Pleasantview werewolf sets cataclysmic events into motion. An unexpected reunion is in order and the still the question remains: would you choose this life? VH/BWOC


**Warnings:** Slight AU, Character Death/Disfigurement, MartyxMerrill, possible slash and who knows what else. Warnings will be added as they come up

**Dedication:**  
This story is dedicated to Kat, for everything she's done for me over the last few years, be it the unending support or just putting up with all my bullshit over the last couple years and being my friend , gods know why lol. The day that I have no other option but to finish a drawing or painting on my own, or when I no longer have you to bounce insane ideas off of until they become something tangable and within reach will be the saddest day of my life. Love you man. Happy belated Birthday.

**Disclaimer:**

Vampire High and Big Wolf on Campus characters are the property of their respected creators. I have no affiliation with them whatsoever. I do take responsibility for the plot however.

**Chapter 1: Come With Me**

_Vampires are by nature solitary creatures with few exceptions, nameless the oftened strained bond between maker and childe, and the discovery of 'the one'. The experiment was to humanise them, and it is with the termination of the experiment after the turning and inevitable execution of one of the day students that the true results thus far in the experiment are shown, to a sorrowful and somewhat surprising conclusion . . ._

For once Marty found himself with nothing to say. He hadn't been surprised by the decision of the council. He hadn't been caught unawares by the termination of the experiment, and to an extent he agreed with them. He stood by what he had told Merrill – how given the chance to go back and choose between death and becoming what they were now, death would have been a better option. What he hadn't expected, what had left him speechless, was the reaction.

Essie had been disappointed but dealt with it in her usual cold detachment, focusing on 'more important things' like being able to once again get in some decent shopping, Mansbridge 'heinously far removed' from those finer things in life. Karl was grateful. The termination of the experiment meant that he didn't have to encounter any disciplinary measures from the elders. Part of Marty wondered if maybe Karl had simply been too young to be saved; only now discovering the thrill of the kill with Dillan, and so far without the guilt and regret. Maybe he was only grateful that now he could put a little bit of distance between himself and Essie. Drew had gone into yet another bout of mourning over the mortal, and Marty hated him for it – his obsession with mortals, his blindness or outright callousness. Merrill had cried.

She had cried and gone to him.

She had gone to him and he couldn't think of anything to say.

The library was silent except the crackling of the fireplace. She'd never really sobbed or made much noise, but now even the hitching, shaking sound of her breathing had evened out. He'd been waiting for the bitten out "Please stop holding me" but it had never come. He knew she wasn't asleep, eyes still open but not returning his occasional looks which had become much more frequent, studying her face as though trying to read her mind, resisting the urge to try and clean away the blood stains left behind from her tears. She seemed oblivious; thinking or maybe trying not to think at all.

He was thinking. Far more than he wished he was. It took away from how comfortable the position was: her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, curled up on the couch together. Thinking seemed to take away from being able to just _feel_. That had been the whole point of the experiment after all hadn't it? Humanising them, teaching them how to feel again. If he could just stop thinking. . . but the situation, the location, made it impossible.

They'd never spoken about it really, but he couldn't stop thinking about that night every time he came into the room and he didn't have to be a mind reader to know how often she thought about it. 

Cold, unfeeling Merrill, Murdoch's star pupil and she couldn't understand why he did it and sometime he wasn't even sure. Murdoch would have been happy to figure it out for him, more proof in favour of the experiment, but he never talked to Murdoch about it, and as far as he could tell, neither had she. It was something private between them that didn't need to be made public. He'd put a crack in her, it was small, and she hid it well most of the time, but he knew it was there, and every once in a little while he'd see it again, he'd see it grow. He wasn't willing to let that go.

"Merrill." He kept his voice low, anything more than that seeming almost obscene, but she seemed not to hear it. "Hey, Merrill."

She felt the vibrations in his chest more than heard the words he spoke, giving a quiet, questioning sound.

"Come with me."

His voice was just as quiet, but this time she heard him perfectly fine, rousing a little more from her thoughtful, lulling daze, comforted by the hum of his thoughts, not reading them, only feeling them in the silence, realising for the first time just how silent it was, feeling a ort of pity for Marty then, guilty for having left him in the silence, amazed he'd kept it and tolerated it. "I don't understand."

"When we leave here tomorrow night, when Murdoch tells us to pack our bags and get out – Come with me."

The silence returned once again, seeming much less comfortable to Marty than it had before, the buzzing of his thoughts much less soothing to Merrill than they had been – and still the silence stretched on. He almost thought she might not have heard him, but he knew it wasn't true, waiting for the carefully worded rejection, fearing he wouldn't even get that as he heard the sound of footsteps, almost too loud against the former silence.

"Alright."

"Ah, there you are Merrill. Could I see you in my office please? It will only take a moment."

"Of course Dr. Murdoch." She gave a wan smile as she stood up, Marty only reluctantly releasing his old on her, noticing for the first time that his shirt was ruined, stained from the tears where she'd buried her face in his shoulder. He hadn't cared in that moment and he still didn't care now.

"Marty, we'll be meeting in ten minutes for our last session, please tell the others."

"Not a problem Doc, Merrill, you heard the man, class in ten minutes." He jumped up from his seat with a little but more than his usual overzealous energy and Cheshire grin, not even begrudging Murdoch for disturbing the moment, in fact silently thanking him for prompting an answer. Maybe he'd send a fruit basket.

With that thought in mind he went down to the cellar.

xoxoxo

As the hours had passed Drew had done a lot of thinking. He had promised Dillan nothing would happen, that everything would be all right, and he had been wrong. He had watched as the elders, represented by Vakaal, had executed Dillan. As with Sherry, there had been nothing he could do, both mortals fated to die. Fate. Fate was the deciding factor in all of this. Sherry's appendix fated to burst, Dillan fated to be turned and executed by the elders because of their own fear and weakness, while he had been fated to live. Perhaps even Merrill surviving her Quivering have been fate, not an affront to it. Merrill. He and she had both been fated to survive. That turned his thoughts to new consideration. Fate 

and Merrill seemed to go hand in hand. Merrill wasn't completely unappealing, she wasn't Sherry, or even Dillan, but she had her uses, her ability to read minds, to dream slide . . .

Mentally he sought her out, to find out where she was in order to proposition her. He had no doubt that she was alone, and still thought him to be her 'one'.

What he did find shocked him, brought out the fangs and red eyes. There she was in the library, not alone as he had thought, not even with Essie which had been his alternative thought, but instead she was with _him_. That short, manipulative, sneaky bastard, and by the looks of things they were far too comfortable together, Merrill too comforted – the trails left by her tears more than apparent on her face, staining Marty's shirt, but long dried. They had clearly sat that way for far longer than was necessary.

_Merrill. . . Hey, Merrill._

_Hmm?_

He waited for the snide, degrading comment that would destroy the moment, separate them.  
_Come with me._

He waited for the 'no', feeling the anger increasing as he was again disappointed.

_I don't understand._

_When we leave here tomorrow night, when Murdoch tells us to pack our bags and get out – come with me._

This time he knew a 'no' was coming, Marty's true nature peeking out in his choice of words even if it didn't in his tone. The ineloquence of it. The silence only meant that Merrill was choosing her words 

carefully for her rejection. She would reject Marty – then she would go to him, ask to join him, talk of fate and the one an –

_Alright._

_Ah, there you are Merrill. Could I see you in –_

He came back to himself with a snarl, the shocked and thoroughly pleased look on Marty's face burned into his memory and not at all what he had wanted to see. This certainly changed his plans, even though they were only just in their infancy. There was still time though, they didn't have to leave the school until the start of the next night, it couldn't be too difficult to convince Merrill to go with him instead of Marty in that time. He was after all her 'one'.

The look of self-satisfaction was quickly replaced by a more sombre and slightly disgusted one as he heard the irritating and unmistakeable voice approaching, singing something about his baby coming back to him. They'd see about that.

"What do you want Marty?"

The leather clad figure stopped in the doorway but seemed nonplussed about Drew's less than welcoming nature. "Last class in five minutes. I'm sure someone would want you there. Don't know who or why but. . ." He trailed off with an indistinctive, uncaring noise and a shrug of his shoulders. Silently, and a little giddily to himself he added 'not Merrill' as he turned on his heels and strutted away. With all of the blood brigade notified and arrival pending there was really nothing left to do but sit and wait.

xoxox

Murdoch barely repressed a quiet sigh as he looked across the table at the five pale faces staring back at him. It would be terrible to see them all go, to have the experiment end in failure. He cared for them equally if not more so than his day students, how could he not considering the circumstances? In some cases he felt the feeling was mutual; yet another testament to the fact that the experiment had been working, that the decision to terminate it had been a mistake.

"First let me begin by saying that the failure of the experiment is not your failure. You have each taken monumental steps forward toward the goal of being humanised, to live among them without coming to destruction."

"Turning and killing 'em is an improvement then? I'd hate to see a backslide, wouldn't you, K – "

"Marty." The look alone would have silenced him, but the combination worked equally well.

"There were a few setbacks for everyone Marty, the point is to move forward from them. Karl's mistakes have cost you all dearly; he knows this, and for the time being there is no need to bring them up again." While directed at Marty even Karl could not mistake who the last part was intended for, shrinking down somewhat in his chair, staring sheepishly at the table. "My hope is that we can all move forward from this experience, this experiment, having grown and improved. For almost a year most of you have not fed from a victim."

"Again it was really only Karl."

"He considers you a victim."

"What?" the grouping of himself with 'victims' had honestly never occurred to Marty. He'd done it willingly. He'd do it again. It was entirely different, no one else even knew. "That's entirely different. Only one of us here has taken a _real_ victim since coming here. It's come close a couple times, but still only one victim. All things considered though it's not half bad what with the free lunch buffet upstairs."

"That is exactly my point." Murdoch stated flatly, momentarily suspending the glares aimed at Marty. "Now as I was saying, I hope this continues. You now know that you can survive –"

"By robbing blood banks?" Essie couldn't help the incredulous look, shaking her head. "Or do you mean feeding off rats all Anne Rice style? Because I'm sorry Dr. Murdoch but there are just some things I am not willing to do."

Murdoch chuckled as he shook his head. "No, I wouldn't ask that of any of you, least of all you Essie. The blood banks are an idea however. Once you've settled some place I can have it arranged that the blood is delivered to you, the same way as it is here. Do any of you happen to know where it is you mean to go?"

"The luxury of vampirism; we have eternity to figure it out. Any thought to where you're headed, Merrill?"

The question made Marty bristle, torn between throwing Drew halfway across the room or making him fall into a subservient, and more importantly, silent trance for the remainder of their time at Mansbridge . . . maybe longer. There was something about the way he said it, the whole thing immediately screaming twofaced and conniving – and he knew Merrill would never see it. He hadn't always held such a dislike for the other, he'd even tried to be friends at first, but he had never been willing to bend over backwards and time was quick to expose Drew for what he was, at least to Marty.

Merrill was well aware of the thoughts racing through his mind, giving the smallest of smiles as she glanced over towards him. "I really haven't put much thought to where."

"If you haven't been to Milan, now is the time to go. Always the frontrunner in the fashion world."

"Let me guess, that's where you're headed Essie?"

"Of course Karl, fashion and it's close to the motherland and family if I ever want to pay them a visit. Unlike you I have that option."

"Hey, maybe Europe would be a cool idea . . ." Marty stated quickly, attempting to move the tone of the conversation in any direction aside from the one it was heading.

"Leave my family out of this." Even Essie seemed to shy somewhat from the snap to his voice, the tinge of red blurring into his irises. "I'm staying in town here. I can't talk to them, but I can watch out for them. I know I can."

"And I'll be here to help you whenever you need it." Murdoch added quickly to silence any retorts that may have been brewing in response. "I will still be here at Mansbridge if ever you have a need for me. I suppose that's everything then. Class dismissed." He gave a wry and almost sorrowful smile as the vampires before turning and preparing to leave, the night students doing likewise, Essie and Karl all too happy to put as much distance between them as they could at the moment leaving before even Dr. Murdoch had. Merrill, Marty, and Drew were in less of a hurry, Merrill setting to work at putting the chairs back in place, Marty making a move to leave, until Drew stopped far too close to Merrill.

"You wouldn't really consider Milan would you?"

She looked up at him, confusion clear, giving a small puzzled smile. "Not for the reasons that Essie said, no, but Europe wouldn't be out of the question. It's been a long time after all."

Drew nodded apparently in understanding, though the gears I his head were rapidly turning, plans seeming to begin to shift into place. "You should come with me then, I was thinking of going back to Italy, I could probably show you around." He offered, giving an almost awkward smile, the awkwardness born of uncertainty, of a fear of rejection – a smile that was completely and utterly false.

At one point Merrill would have agreed in an instant, ignoring the undercurrent of deception that tainted the colour of his thoughts, the lie that compromised his smile. She had studied him well enough in her lovelorn state to know when he was lying, when he was up to something, even if she hadn't paid attention to these things then. "It's a tempting offer but I was not honestly considering Milan. It's too busy. Maybe some little English country side, but then that might be a little too boring for Marty's tastes."

"Marty?" Not for the first time Drew felt he may have underestimated the short manipulative little bastard, his eyes narrowing fractionally. "You'd honestly go with Marty, over me? You said I was your one."

At those words Marty immediately stepped to intervene, moving to seem as though he was only just coming back into the room, utterly unaware of what was occurring, oblivious to the way the scent of fear had filled the room. "Hey, Merrill, mind comin' with me for a sec, don't want to interrupt the goodbyes or nothin' but kind of important."

"Of course, Marty." The words were spoken a little too quickly, immediately crossing the room to the other vampire, certainly not resisting as his hand rested on the small of her back, guiding her out of the room.

"Goodbye, Drew."

xoxoxo

"It was fine . . . just the last time he said that . . ." Merrill trailed off quietly as she stared at her hands, folded on the table in front of her. "I never did thank you for that."

Marty gave a weak smile, hesitating for a moment before putting his hand on her shoulder, deciding instead to avoid the subject for the time being. "So, what did Murdoch say to you anyway?"

"Basically the same thing he told the rest of you, that he felt we'd all made progress –"

"So he told you you were his model student." For a second he almost thought she looked embarrassed.

"And that he hoped the best for me, and that he thought I'd make good choices. Then we joked about how he would finally be able to get a full night's sleep for once." It was basically the truth, a few pieces altered, a few things left out. It wasn't a lack of trust, just an inability to admit.

"Yea. . . poor guy's probably glad we're gone, not that he'd admit it or anything. " Marty mused idly, recalling just how little time Murdoch did have left for sleep between the day and night schools, let alone any personal time. "We still need to decide where to go though."

"How?"

"You believe in fate, right Merrill?" He questioned, standing up, heading over to the bookshelves and skimming over the titles on the spine.

"You're not proposing we just go, are you? There has to be some plan, there are coffins and luggage and . . ."

"No, I'm proposing we let fate decide." He declared, pulling a book from the shelf triumphantly, holding up the world atlas for her to see before flipping to a random page, jabbing it with his finger before looking carefully at what it hit.

"Pleasantville it is."


End file.
